Jo's Mistake
by Wyndes
Summary: My turn to tag "Reprise" - and yes, it's definitely your usual shipper fluff!


_A/N: The usual disclaimer, not my world, I just like to play in it. _

**Jo's Mistake**

It was probably a mistake. Jo knew it the minute her lips touched his. She was keeping hers deliberately still, deliberately cool, trying for the dry, chaste peck of a first date gone awry, but she could feel her pulse racing.

She'd given him up, she reminded herself. This wasn't her Zane.

And even if he had been, her hesitation when he proposed had been real. Yeah, she loved him, but take sex out of the mix, and did they really have what it took to go the distance? And if she couldn't make it with her Zane – the mellower, easier, happier Zane – what chance did she have with this Zane? None, nada, zip. The answer was obvious. Now she just had to convince him of it.

She pulled away, her face as still as she could make it. "See? Nothing."

Could he tell it was a lie? She took two steps past him, wanting her back to him so he couldn't see what her eyes might reveal. The charred remnants of her house were all around her and she tried to use the sight to harden her heart against him. Maybe it would have worked if she hadn't come so close to killing Carter that the bruise still pained her.

His hand on her arm stopped her and she paused. Could he feel the pulse in the soft curve of her elbow? Was her pounding heart giving her away? She could break his grip with one more step. All she needed to do was take it.

She turned instead, a split second before he did the same, and it was the expression on his face that did her in. Eyes half-lidded and dark with desire, lips half-parted. She'd seen it before, but not for months.

In the embers of her burned house, her blood turned to fire. She was rising on tiptoes to meet him, her lips parted for his before he'd even touched her.

_Damn it, damn it, damn it,_ she thought, even as her hands slid up his chest and curled around his neck, pulling him down to her while his hands gently tugged her hips closer. _This is really stupid. This is…_And then she wasn't thinking anymore because his tongue was teasing hers, and his hands were caressing her, roaming over her back and sides, and she wanted more. She wanted to feel his bare skin, to taste him, to take this kiss deeper and deeper.

She was touching his face, the stubble of his beard scratchy against her fingertips, drowning in the sensations of his touch, when he finally broke their kiss.

"See? Something," he said, voice husky.

A joke. Of course. What else could she expect from him?

"A mistake," she replied, tugging away.

He pulled her back, gathering her close and covering her lips with his, and this time his hands were firm, holding her against him, their warmth burning into her back, and she knew she ought to resist, ought to fight this temptation, but she just couldn't.

She kissed him back as fiercely, as passionately, as if he was her Zane, returned to her after being frozen, after being electrified, after nearly cooking under a second sun, until breathless, she turned her head, and began nibbling along the line of his jaw.

"Superglue, vulcanized rubber, stainless steel," he muttered, before trying to capture her mouth again. "Penicillin."

"What are you talking about?" She kept dropping kisses along his skin, not letting him silence her.

"Mistakes." He caught her mouth with his, tongue searching. "Good mistakes. Change the world kind of good mistakes." He was punctuating each word with kisses, and damn it, where was a couch when she needed one? Or better yet, a bed? Her legs weren't going to hold her up much longer, the rush of pure lust making her knees rubbery.

"Superglue?" It was a breathless gasp as he caught her earlobe between his teeth. No furniture. Right. Because her house, her new house, her beautiful new house, was gone. Burned up. Just the way that she was going to burn up if she couldn't get Zane's hands on her skin soon.

"Saved lives in Vietnam. And the penicillin was just sloppy lab work." What the hell was he talking about? This was just like him. He was the most conversational lover she'd ever had, always chatting. At least until that moment when he couldn't talk anymore, when he was so engrossed in her that the words were gone and there was nothing but the heat and the movement and the feelings.

Then his sentence sunk in. "Are you seriously comparing me to sloppy lab work?" Her voice hinted at annoyance, but she kept her amusement hidden. He was such a guy.

"No! No, I'm comparing you to a miracle drug." That was better. Maybe not a lot better, but enough. She went back to kissing him, and now the heat had taken over: she still wanted more, but it wasn't going to be enough until she had all of him, until he was inside her. But where?

"Jo," The rasp in the way he said her name sent a shiver down her spine. Right. She knew this experience. She knew what it was like between them. She'd felt this fire before. But for him, it was all new. "Come to my place with me."

"Zane, I…" she hesitated. She looked around at the ashes.

"I want you," he whispered. "Come with me."

_I love you_, she thought_. I love you_. But for tonight want would have to do. "Okay."


End file.
